School for the Gifted
= Prf. Garen Night's School for the Gifted = Headmaster: Garen Night PT Teacher: Graydon Creed Astronomy: Ashley Martin Science: Kevin Kristofferson Medical Sciences: Dr. Patricia Harker Students by hero name Slash, aka Tiffany Mir Psyche Cannon, aka Willy Bradshaw Powerhause, aka Derreck Moris Frostbite, aka Casey McQuire Kerry Williams Blackout, aka Darren Jones Tommy Amaya Rick Mazzick "Midas" Located in Ireland's Wicklow Mountains is Humewood, a Gothic Revival castle designed by English architect William White in 1867 for William Wentworth Fitzwilliam Hume Dick. The residence, which was recently bought by international businessman Christien Lucien, is now renovated to be a large school for gifted children. In Ireland, the country house was more than just an expression of its owner. It also had a military purpose as a defensible stronghold and rallying point for the local militia. The original eighteenth-century house on the Humewood estate had withstood sieges, and many of its defensive features were incorporated in the Gothic Revival structure, built between 1867 and 1870, that now stands on the grounds. The magnificent mansion was commissioned by William Wentworth Fitzwilliam Hume Dick. Like his father, William Hoare Hume, and grandfather William Hume, he was a member of Parliament for County Wicklow. From his mother, Charlotte Dick, daughter of a wealthy Dublin merchant, he inherited the fortune that enabled him to demolish the old house with its Georgian facade and erect a castle faced with pure granite and containing the most modern conveniences. There were baths on every floor, and the kitchen was connected to the dining room by means of a rotating hatch through which dishes could be passed "without letting through either draught, noise, or smell." In recognition of the maternal contribution to his improved status, Hume added his mother’s family name to his own. The architect he chose, William White, is almost forgotten: He features, if at all, in books on Victorian architecture as the designer of two fine churches in London and one in Hampshire. Humewood, sadly, proved to be his only major country house. Having exceeded his budget by more than 50 percent, White, along with his client, was sued by the builder. The case, won by the builder, became a landmark in architectural case law. White’s career suffered, and he never received another important commission. But, as historian Mark Girouard, author of The Victorian Country House, observes, the loss was really architec-ture’s, “for this odd, original, gifted, cranky, over-sanguine and unconventional architect had designed one of the most remarkable of Victorian country houses.” White had worked in Gilbert Scott’s office before setting up on his own in Cornwall. Although a Gothicist, he was also a rationalist, believing that architecture was a science as well as an art. “In all design,” he wrote, “it is of far greater consequence that the laws of fitness should be followed than that a rigid uniformity should be observed. The end of nature and of necessity must be first served, and then the ends of art." White considered the equilateral triangle to be the basis of good proportions. Both the main house and the stables at Humewood involve the elaborate interplay of triangular forms with crenellated ga-bles, turrets and pinnacles echoing each other at different levels, gradually building up to a massive central tower. Though the outline is quintes-sentially romantic, especially at dusk or when the Irish rain emphasizes the stark granite walls, the arrangement was not just aesthetic. As White explained to his colleagues at the Royal Institute of British Architects, the old house had withstood siege during the 1798 uprising, and it was “desirable to build a house capable of defence in case of an attack... although we may hope that such disturbances have now become a thing of the past.” Un-characteristically for a Victorian Gothic house, there is a basement, which lifts the first floor off the ground, improving security and enhancing the exterior elevation, while raising “the ‘living’ part of the house above the cold and damps of the country.” The last of the Humes, Hume Dick’s granddaughter, Catherine Marie-Made-White referred to the 60,000-square-foot house as “a family mansion not above the average size." Commissioned by Hume Dick as “an occasional resort in the summer recess or the shooting season," Humewood remained in the family until the death of the last descendant, Catherine Marie-Madeleine Hume-Weygand, in 1992. Leine (“Mimi”) Hume-Weygand (whose father-in-law, General Maxime Weygand, was in command of the French army at the fall of France in 1940), died without heirs in 1992, and the property was sold at auction. Humewood Castle has been lavishly yet sympathetically restored, with twelve of the fourteen luxuriously appointed bedrooms having en-suite bathrooms. All the bedrooms are strikingly different, each decorated around a specific theme. Move from the elegant Empire Suite to the period splendour of the Napoleonic Bedroom; from the warmth of the Vivaldi Suite to the powerful beauty of the Dynasty Suite.